Replacing 5400 drive with 7200 rpm drive

[panflute]

I own a z60t-e7u with a 5400 rpm drive. The 7200 rpm drive from lenovo is almost $500. Newegg has 2 drives that COULD work, I don't know. They are
1. Seagate Momentus 7200.1 - ST910021AS, SATA 150 - $169
2. Hitachi Travelstar 7K100, RoHS compliant, native comm query, hot plug, staggered spinup, enhanced ABLE - $119

Does anyone know if either fo these drives will replace te original?

thanks

[Humpa]

The hitachi/travelstar are supposedly the best - that's what I always buy, and that's what I'm in the market for now.

That price isn't right though - not for the 100gb 7200rpm SATA Hitachi - it is more like $145, give or take.
I think you are looking at the 80gb 7200rpm travelstar at newegg? I thought I was looking at that yesterday for $119 - something I was looking at was $119 at least.

EDIT: not sure why I thought you were looking at 100gb drives - maybe because I am ... lol

[panflute]

Yes you are right, the Hitachi is an 80 GB drive for $119. All things being equal, I could live with the 80GB.

[Humpa]

Yes you are right, the Hitachi is an 80 GB drive for $119. All things being equal, I could live with the 80GB.

Yeah, I'm thinking of making that same purchase. That was the best price I could find for the 80gig model. I'm not sure if the extra 20gig is worth another $30 - I suppose it is. $1.50 a gig isn't bad for a 2.5" 7200rpm SATA. :hehehe:

Though I still have my 100gb 5400rpm SATA that I can throw in the ultraslim bay - I just picked up an ultraslim SATA hdd adapter for $8 on ebay, so I need another drive so I can use it! The only spare 2.5" drives I have are ATA's
... though I have an ATA ultraslim hdd adapter, of course.

[panflute]

Humpa

Since I have the DVD writer & regularly do full backups I am assuming I should have no trouble doing a full restore from DVD....
since I think the restore will run from the bios, or I can just use a bootable dvd...?

I let you kjow when I get the new drive...

[panflute]

or maybe I need to save a copy of the backup utility, reinstall xp from an install CD, install the backup utility, then do a restore from the dvd;'s....

[Humpa]

or maybe I need to save a copy of the backup utility, reinstall xp from an install CD, install the backup utility, then do a restore from the dvd;'s....

I find that it takes too long and also becomes cumbersome to use dvd's for backups.
I use the spare hdd to store my latest backup image, and I use my home pc to store any older backup images that I may have.

I have started using acronis true image, and I have a usb flash drive with the acronis boot utility on it - this works beautifully with our thinkpads. Just install your new drive, make sure your backup image is on your spare drive in the media bay, plug the usb flash drive in, and boot to usb!

If you don't have an hdd ultraslim adapter, just put your backup image on dvd. Put your boot/backup utility on a usb flash drive. To make the usb flash drive bootable, use the HP utility (it works on any usb flash drive, not just theirs - you'll have to google for it, but it is popular and free from HP).

[Humpa]

I uploaded the bootable usb flash drive utility, and the dos files you need to drag onto the usb once it is bootable. After that, all you have to do is use your ghost/acronis or whatever to load the backup utility to the flash drive.
http://rapidshare.de/files/31480608/boo ... e.zip.html

[panflute]

That sounds quicker and easier than using the dvd;s.....and I have acronis.
Last month I accidently forgot the USB flash drive in the slot when I turned the computer on...the result was the touchpad got disabled and it also disappeared from the bios. A quick call to tech support and all I needed to do was remove the palm rest, unplug the touchpad cable, reboot, then plug it back in and it was back.....
it was a bit of a nightmare since I use the laptop in a cirtical environment, so I am now careful not to leave the jumpdrive in the usb slot when turning it on and I disabled it from the bootup in the bios just to be sure. All in all this has been a pretty stable machine considering all of the updates lenovo have done. There are still a couple of small glithes but nothing critical and they will probably get aroiund to fixing them too. I saw someone here had trouble with the screen resizing itself when shutting the cover...that was fixed in the latest bios update, although there was a work around for that too....I use the machine to play music sequences in my band, but also have a 2nd MP3 player as a backup, and another very old thinkpad as another backup machine too....I'll look into that adapter on Ebay....thanks

[panflute]

humpa

could you please explain exactly which adapter you got & what it does...

also, do I need any additional hardware or covers or whatever to plug the (old) 2.5" drive into the ultrabay?

I can invision a variety of ways to restore the system, but whatever I do I';ll be sure to have a recent dvd backup just in case I screw something up...

[Humpa]

You just need the ultraslim hdd adapter.
IBM makes one for the ATA drives and they have a new one now for the SATA drives.
Nothing else is needed.
http://www-131.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/store ... 8425101139
And here is the pdf manual for it:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-61255

That ultraslim media bay is hotswapable - you can just pull your dvd drive out and put in a hdd (in the adapter).

When you take your hdd (your main C drive) out of your thinkpad, you have to take off the little shield and attachment that is on it, and put that on your new harddrive, of course.
But no attachments or anything is needed for a 2.5" SATA drive to go in the hdd adapter.

[Humpa]

That sounds quicker and easier than using the dvd;s.....and I have acronis.
Last month I accidently forgot the USB flash drive in the slot when I turned the computer on...the result was the touchpad got disabled and it also disappeared from the bios. A quick call to tech support and all I needed to do was remove the palm rest, unplug the touchpad cable, reboot, then plug it back in and it was back.....
it was a bit of a nightmare since I use the laptop in a cirtical environment, so I am now careful not to leave the jumpdrive in the usb slot when turning it on and I disabled it from the bootup in the bios just to be sure. All in all this has been a pretty stable machine considering all of the updates lenovo have done. There are still a couple of small glithes but nothing critical and they will probably get aroiund to fixing them too. I saw someone here had trouble with the screen resizing itself when shutting the cover...that was fixed in the latest bios update, although there was a work around for that too....I use the machine to play music sequences in my band, but also have a 2nd MP3 player as a backup, and another very old thinkpad as another backup machine too....I'll look into that adapter on Ebay....thanks

I didn't see this post till now .. lol
I haven't had any problems with my flash drive - though I've only tested it a few times, just to make sure it was bootable and the acronis utility worked and could access my spare drive and the backup image, etc .... worked like a charm, too.

I have an x21 for a back up, and a T42 that almost works(?)

My Z60m has been flawless so far - though I did accidently delete my MasterBootRecord when I started using acronis (and BEFORE I had made a backup), so I did a clean install of xp pro. But thanks to ibm's awesome device drivers page, I was up and running at 100% quick enough.
I use mine for work (I'm an IT guy), but I've been playing around with audio on it recently - I hooked up my Roland midi keyboard and installed cubasesx 3 and a ton of sampletank instruments and my Bose speakers - I'm quite impressed, to say the least - I wasn't expecting good sound from a thinkpad!

BTW, the hdd adapters aren't any cheaper on ebay or anywhere else than they are from ibm. I don't know how I managed to get one yesterday for $8 - I guess I got lucky (and the seller is a power seller who says the item is new - the part number matches and everything, so I seem to be good).

[panflute]

You were VERY lucky....thats the way it is on Ebay sometimes...you never know what is going to happen. There's one up there for .99 cents right now, but it is 6 days away....if I go the way way of the DVD's, then I may not need the adapter tho it could be a lot more work. BTW I did not get an XP Pro disk with the laptop. I can use keyfinder.exe to pull of the XP serial number, but not sure how I would restore in case I lost everything. I'd bet Lenovo also has the XP serial # on file.

[Humpa]

You were VERY lucky....thats the way it is on Ebay sometimes...you never know what is going to happen. There's one up there for .99 cents right now, but it is 6 days away....if I go the way way of the DVD's, then I may not need the adapter tho it could be a lot more work. BTW I did not get an XP Pro disk with the laptop. I can use keyfinder.exe to pull of the XP serial number, but not sure how I would restore in case I lost everything. I'd bet Lenovo also has the XP serial # on file.

bah - I just used another copy/serial number I had. Though there are instructions for getting the os and the serial number in the sticky thread in the windows forum:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=3827
But that seemed like too much work to me.

[panflute]

The XP Pro serial # is on the bottom of the laptop.....DUH....
thanks for that link....I wouldn;t mind having a copy of XP Pro so I will try to make one. (One of the links in that topic is no longer working). I am ready to buy the drive. ALL of my data only comes to 20 gigs at this point (after clearing out all the junk) and I like to keep the laptop lean & mean so I think the 80 gigs will be plenty. I am really wanting better performance and so am looking forward to this upgrade...will keep my eye on the ultrabay....BTW 2 weeks ago Lenovo was clearing out their top of the line z60t for $1299!
They are gone now. I have the E7U. Am curious if the new "dual core" processors are any faster or if the software takes advantage of it. Naturally after paying about $1800 for the E7U and seeing it fall down in price I wished I had waited a little while longer. The drive upgrade will make me feel better about it all....

[Humpa]

The XP Pro serial # is on the bottom of the laptop.....DUH....
thanks for that link....I wouldn;t mind having a copy of XP Pro so I will try to make one. (One of the links in that topic is no longer working). I am ready to buy the drive. ALL of my data only comes to 20 gigs at this point (after clearing out all the junk) and I like to keep the laptop lean & mean so I think the 80 gigs will be plenty. I am really wanting better performance and so am looking forward to this upgrade...will keep my eye on the ultrabay....BTW 2 weeks ago Lenovo was clearing out their top of the line z60t for $1299!
They are gone now. I have the E7U. Am curious if the new "dual core" processors are any faster or if the software takes advantage of it. Naturally after paying about $1800 for the E7U and seeing it fall down in price I wished I had waited a little while longer. The drive upgrade will make me feel better about it all....

I tried the serial number from the bottom, but it didn't work for me.

But those deals levono had were awesome!
My Z60m was $1000! No dual core, but I'll wait till they can take advantage of that better, by then I'll be ready for Vista and a new thinkpad.
I had my boss buy me the $1000 2531MTU: 2.0GHz, 1GB ram (1 stick), 100GB 5400rpm, DVD-RW/CD-RW, 9-cell, Bluetooth, Intel Pro a/b/g, 128MB X600 video card, 15.4" WSXVGA+
The new Z61m is pretty awesome though, and the price isn't all that much more - I'm trying not to look at them.

[panflute]

After reading all the pages on making an xp disk and restoring I don't think that is the way to go for me......way too many steps, although I may just want to make the disk & backup my system files. It would be MUCH easier just to mirror the drive using acronis and be done with it. I have used so many utilities to clean my drive that can't imagine having it any cleaner at this point.

[Humpa]

After reading all the pages on making an xp disk and restoring I don't think that is the way to go for me......way too many steps, although I may just want to make the disk & backup my system files. It would be MUCH easier just to mirror the drive using acronis and be done with it. I have used so many utilities to clean my drive that can't imagine having it any cleaner at this point.

Why don't you want to just use the image of your drive?
No one seems to think there is any advantage to doing a clean install.
I only did a clean install because I couldn't boot up after I screwed something up (my MBR).

[panflute]

You are right, and I just figured this out. When you make a make a full backup using the Thinkpad built in utility (which is probably a version of acronis) is automatically makes you a bootable restore CD. My 20 gigs backup onto 3 dvd's + the bootable one (there is some compression). So you just boot off the DVD and insert the backups and you end up with a mirror of the original. It saved my butt a couple of times. I am a computer tech, used to do it full time....I won't go into all of the utilities I use to clean out the machine, but 1 program in particular I use is O&O defrag. It is an enhanced version of the defrag included with windows, only you have different ways of defraging the drive. The best, first time use, is doing an ACCESS defrag, which defrags via the file date putting most recently used & boot files at the front of the drive.....it greatly speeds up the bootup process. I also use "tune-up utilities 2004" that rebulild the icon cache, I also use pagedefrag that defrags the pagibng files (O&O does that too).....a few other registry cleaners & registry defrag....like WINASO work great too...all of these things speed up the computer nicely. If you want a copy of O&O let me know....

[Humpa]

You are right, and I just figured this out. When you make a make a full backup using the Thinkpad built in utility (which is probably a version of acronis) is automatically makes you a bootable restore CD. My 20 gigs backup onto 3 dvd's + the bootable one (there is some compression). So you just boot off the DVD and insert the backups and you end up with a mirror of the original. It saved my butt a couple of times. I am a computer tech, used to do it full time....I won't go into all of the utilities I use to clean out the machine, but 1 program in particular I use is O&O defrag. It is an enhanced version of the defrag included with windows, only you have different ways of defraging the drive. The best, first time use, is doing an ACCESS defrag, which defrags via the file date putting most recently used & boot files at the front of the drive.....it greatly speeds up the bootup process. I also use "tune-up utilities 2004" that rebulild the icon cache, I also use pagedefrag that defrags the pagibng files (O&O does that too).....a few other registry cleaners & registry defrag....like WINASO work great too...all of these things speed up the computer nicely. If you want a copy of O&O let me know....

I have O&O, but I haven't used it in quite some time.
Maybe I should.

[panflute]

BTW Vista seems to be a pie in the sky for now. who knows when the release date will be, I've seen the description on Microspft site but still dont know exactly what it does (sounds like fancier graphics and tabs), they state that you can turn off some options depending on your machine's capabilities - so exactly what the performance will be on any particular machine is up in the air......
so weather my z60t with 1 gig of ram, a 2 gig processor, and a 7200 rpm drive will be fast enough is unknown.....of course the faster the machine the better....they keeps us coming back for sure.....I dont know anyone with a Vista beta...

[panflute]

When Vista is released, you can be sure there will be bugs, driver issues, etc, then 6 months later there will be SP1, another year later SP2, then it will be pretty stable, then there will be talk of the next version....do you have "Spy Emergency"?......EXCELLENT program....Norton is the worst, Mcafee is not so bad but they want you to pay....I use AVG virus, Ad-aware, spywareblaster, all free, all work great without bogging down your machine. Spy Emergency finds what the others dont & updates itself at startup. Every couple of months I do an online scan with Trend Micro PC Housecall (tho it has trouble with some browsers & computers)....Windows Defender seems useless and has update problems......

[Humpa]

BTW Vista seems to be a pie in the sky for now. who knows when the release date will be, I've seen the description on Microspft site but still dont know exactly what it does (sounds like fancier graphics and tabs), they state that you can turn off some options depending on your machine's capabilities - so exactly what the performance will be on any particular machine is up in the air......
so weather my z60t with 1 gig of ram, a 2 gig processor, and a 7200 rpm drive will be fast enough is unknown.....of course the faster the machine the better....they keeps us coming back for sure.....I dont know anyone with a Vista beta...

I was just saying.
You won't hear me complain about XP or wish for anything new - everything's great as far as I'm concerned.
What a pain in the [censored] it was when XP came out - waiting for updates because your software didn't support XP, or buying the '98 version to get the serial number and having to download the update online or whatever. I don't miss that. Hell, I'm just happy to have a smooth running machine without BSOD's.
... and if I need a server, linux has my back.

I was an electronics tech in the Navy, but before pc's (or at least before they were common place, and before my ship had any). I'm working in IT now, but I'm self taught. I've mostly done web stuff - web site coding. Mostly php and the like. Now I'm working for a friend who started www.usdebtresolve.com - and SEO's kicking my [censored]. Which really is starting to get on my nerves. Where I need SEO, I can't get - but when I don't try, I'm right at the top. Go do a search on google for "phone cam" (and you don't even need the quotes) - see the number one search result? That's my site. Nothing like having the top spot for such seemingly generic and popular term, and getting squat for it. But god forbid google could show me some love with anything relating to "credit card debt". And "humpa" too, though that's a rather useless term to have the top spot in the searches, but google has me on every result page from 1 to 90,000.

[Humpa]

When Vista is released, you can be sure there will be bugs, driver issues, etc, then 6 months later there will be SP1, another year later SP2, then it will be pretty stable, then there will be talk of the next version....do you have "Spy Emergency"?......EXCELLENT program....Norton is the worst, Mcafee is not so bad but they want you to pay....I use AVG virus, Ad-aware, spywareblaster, all free, all work great without bogging down your machine. Spy Emergency finds what the others dont & updates itself at startup. Every couple of months I do an online scan with Trend Micro PC Housecall (tho it has trouble with some browsers & computers)....Windows Defender seems useless and has update problems......

hmmm ... I didn't notice this post.
Yeah, I use/have used most of the free stuff. I'll look into spy emergency though - I've not heard of that.
I like to use little-to-nothing (unless I get hit, and then the free stuff works great if you know what you're doing - or if you can search and read english, which so many people seem incapable of). I normally just back up my work everyday, and save a ghost or acronis image of my OS weekly. It seems easier and a lot more reliable to just be able to recover as opposed to try and prevent.

[panflute]

interesting...I am web designer/master running several sites. My newest is onlinedivorceclass.net. at first i handled the seo & it was a roller coaster ride. then I hired a seo company that I am not happy with so far & about to drop them. we were at the top in june then the bottom dropped out when msn decided not to post any more yahoo ads....i messed with yahoo & google ads & everything else. a programmer friend says he knows someone at microsoft that says the same thing about the engines...if you have anyone to recommend I am listening. It seems that simply submitting is not enuf...you have to build links & other stuff..it is a full time job, and all of the companies make the same claims so it is impossible to know which one will actually deliver. I sent them an email last week expressing my unhappiness, but so far no real response. Ill have a look at your site later have to run out right now.
a couple other sites
cajun-fest.com
ren-fest.com
hurricaneprecastfence.com (under construction).....

[Humpa]

I checked out your sites - web design is not my strong suit. People think because you can code that you can design a website - which is somewhat true, but they just don't see the difference between webdesign and web programming. But the cajun-fest site reminded me of my upcoming trip - my father and I are going to fantasy fest again this year (we missed last year because of the hurricane Key West had) - we're big into photography (though I'm more into the tech side of it - I do love my Nikon D70 - I'm too left brained to be very artistic, though I do alright).

I know what you mean about SEO being a full-time job. I could really use a team - there's just not enough hours in a day. There are so many SEO and SEO related companies out there - and they all promise you the world (and charge that way too!). We haven't tried any though.
The hardest part for me is getting any links - especially in the debt world. I have a zillion incoming links to humpa.com and thephonecam.com - that's a huge reason in them ranking at the top.
But it's just such a pain in the [censored] getting any relevant links for the debt company. And the fact that it is a subject (debt/money) that I know nothing about, just makes it all the more difficult.
I've been reading everything I can find for the last few months - the more I read, the less I know and the more depressed I get ... lol (not really).
I've started using yahoo and google ads recently too - and that's a whole other world. Another rather overwhelming topic - I've been reading at web master world (or trying too, at least).

I kind of wish I could just write code all day - I like code, there is no gray area, no confusion, and the rules are absolute.

[truthiness]

BTW Vista seems to be a pie in the sky for now. who knows when the release date will be, I've seen the description on Microspft site but still dont know exactly what it does (sounds like fancier graphics and tabs), they state that you can turn off some options depending on your machine's capabilities - so exactly what the performance will be on any particular machine is up in the air......
so weather my z60t with 1 gig of ram, a 2 gig processor, and a 7200 rpm drive will be fast enough is unknown.....of course the faster the machine the better....they keeps us coming back for sure.....I dont know anyone with a Vista beta...

fyi, Vista RC1 was released yesterday... there are links to it via this site: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=34866

[panflute]

thanks for the link, looks interesting, but probably not ready for prime time...we'll see what the blogs say. I am using IE RC1....
it is a little better than beta 3 in that some bugs have been fixed...good enuff to use & I like it...nice improvement over IE 6. I tried the new media player 10 (or 11 cant remember) and they incorporated that MS sync program...I took it out for now....that sync program will poll the ports every second and slow down the pc....at least my current version does, and you cannot disable it in the startup with the new version...even using msconfig...maybe they'll fix that in later releases. I bought a 100gb travelstar from someone on ebay for $145 delivered....will let you know how it goes...